Craig Williams, one of the Kentuckians recognized on KentuckyHeroes.com, was featured today in an article in The Richmond Register. Williams has worked with Senator Mitch McConnell to ensure that the military moves quickly to safely dispose of chemical weapons stored at the Bluegrass Army Depot.

In 1984, Berea resident and New Jersey native Craig Williams attended his first public forum where he and a crowd of about 1,000 locals learned that weapons of mass destruction were being stored in Madison County at the Blue Grass Army Depot.

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“One day, the Army came to town and told us: ‘We have chemical weapons and we’re going to incinerate them. Any questions?,’” Williams said.

“I raised my hand and it’s still raised today. On the way home that night, my wife looked at me and said, ‘Craig, you have to do something.’ And since I always do what my wife tells me, here I am more than 20 years later.”

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“People need to know that it can be done,” he said. “I think that people can do a lot of things if they decide what it is they want to do and are strategic in the way they go about it. Once we educated ourselves on the issue (of chemical weapons storage and destruction), we decided it was something we were not going to tolerate.”

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Recent communication between U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates resulted in a 2017 chemical weapons destruction deadline, which means the weapons would be gone six years before the deadline last set, which was 2023.

The result of the provision was two-fold in that the Department of Defense was legally obligated to complete disposal by 2017 and had to obtain the appropriate amount of funding to meet the deadline.

 

“This is a direct result of the people’s engagement in this issue,” Williams said. “It’s remarkable.”